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One name we often remember when we talk about axioms is Euclid of
Alexandria, the Greek mathematician known as the "Father of Geometry." His
masterpiece, "The Elements," derived the principles of traditional geometry from a
small set of basic axioms. Just five axioms imagine that, five axioms describe
almost everything you learned about geometry in middle and high school. Let's
explore these axioms: The first axiom states: Between any two different points, we
can draw a straight line, meaning any two points can be connected by a straight
line.
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The second one says that any straight-line segment can be extended
indefinitely in both directions, meaning if you go to the ends of the straight
segment, you can pull and stretch it to infinity. The third one says: We can draw
any circle if we know its center and radius. That means we just need to know the
circle's radius and center. The fourth one states: All right angles are equal, of
course, which is 90 degrees. Simple axioms so far, right? Let's see what the fifth
says: the fifth one states: If two straight lines intersect a third line
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such that the sum of the internal angles on one side of the intersection
is less than 90 degrees, then the two lines will meet if extended on that same
side. Wow, wait a minute, this last one is more complex than the first four axioms.
Let's represent it first to make it clearer. We draw a random straight line and two
other lines intersecting the first one such that the angles resulting from this
intersection on this side, for example, are each less than 90 degrees. So, if we
extend these two lines just a little, they necessarily will intersect on this side.
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Now that we've represented it, it seems easy. But how did Euclid assume
that something this complex should be an axiom? This axiom was a problem for Euclid
himself, and he tried not to use it for as long as possible. He proved everything
by relying only on the first four axioms until he was forced to use it in
Proposition 29 of his book "The Elements." For many years, countless mathematicians
tried using Euclid's first four axioms to prove the fifth, which became known as
the "Parallel Postulate."
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But no one could do it. The results of these efforts were a number of
statements logically equivalent to the Parallel Postulate, meaning they are true if
and only if the other is true. Perhaps one of the most famous logically equivalent
statements to the Parallel Postulate is Playfair's axiom, named after the Scottish
mathematician John Playfair. Before you finish the video, if you liked the content
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And subscribe to the channel so we can move forward, In Shaa ALLAH.
Playfair's axiom says: Take a random straight line and a point outside this line.
There is exactly one straight line that can be drawn passing through this point and
parallel to the first line. After years of attempts and failures, two
mathematicians, the Hungarian János Bolyai and the Russian Nikolai Lobachevsky,
thought outside the box and wondered: What if the Parallel Postulate was wrong? And
if we assume something different in its place, can we create a consistent geometry?
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And the answer was: Of course, it's possible. Bolyai and Lobachevsky
created a new type of geometry, non-Euclidean geometry called hyperbolic geometry,
also known as Bolyai-Lobachevsky geometry. In this new branch of mathematics, every
straight line can have an infinite number of parallel lines to it, all passing
through the same point. You can think of this hyperbolic geometry as if you're
drawing straight lines on a surface that looks like a Pringles potato chip, a horse
saddle, or even coral reefs in the sea
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In addition, German mathematician Bernhard Riemann came after them and
worked on another type of geometry called elliptic geometry. In contrast to
hyperbolic geometry, if we take a straight line and a point not belonging to it,
you will never find another straight line passing through that point and parallel
to the first line. Think of it as if you're drawing on a sphere. The summary of all
this is that choosing the axioms you work with is very important. Simply changing
one hypothesis about the mathematical system you work with can significantly alter
how that system operates.
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Now, after all this talk about choosing the right axioms, is there a
fundamental set of axioms that allows us to derive all of mathematics from it? This
provocative question passed through the minds of many mathematicians, the most
famous of whom was the German David Hilbert. At that time, mathematics was going
through what is called the "Foundations Crisis," and a number of contradictions
began to appear. Mathematicians tried to give it a solid foundation to rely on. So,
Hilbert suggested to his friends to search for a limited set of axioms
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from which all known mathematics could be derived, and he set some basic
criteria for this set, including: First: Completeness, meaning that all
mathematically true statements can be proven from these axioms. Second:
Consistency, meaning that these axioms must be coherent and not create any
contradictions. Third: Decidability, meaning that these axioms can determine the
truth or falsity of any mathematical statement. Unfortunately, despite the nobility
of Hilbert's program, it was shown to be futile by Austrian mathematician Kurt
Gödel.
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Gödel arrived at what is known as the Incompleteness Theorems,
effectively showing that it is impossible to achieve a complete and consistent
mathematical system using a defined set of axioms. Also, any system we arrive at
this way will always have a set of statements whose truth or falsity cannot be
determined using only the chosen axioms. These statements can be true or false, but
the axioms will not tell us that. Here we reach the end of the episode and the end
of this introduction that lasted for three episodes.
